Nick Harkaway - Tigerman

He drove on, feeling the cable squirm under his tyres, and stopped outside the scrivener’s door. He debated whether to hoot, whether to leave the engine running in case he needed to make an escape. But didn’t want to lose the car to some wandering sneak, so he took the keys and went to the door.

She opened it before he could knock. ‘I’m okay.’

He breathed out slowly. ‘I was hoping.’

She didn’t ask how he knew to look for her here. Well, he was supposed to be a detective, and perhaps everyone had known except him. Gossip was like that.

‘Have you seen the boy?’ he asked.

‘No.’ And he saw her face mirror his own worry: If he’s not with me and he’s not with you, then where? But at least she was not the boy’s mother, that was something. The world she could offer was so big. He could not compete with that, wouldn’t try. Johns Hopkins. Ivy League schools. A woman who could open doors. That would be a fine place for the boy. Just not his boy, any more. But it seemed he was spared that moment. He felt a guilty triumph.

‘Your house. .’ he began, but she raised a hand.

‘I know. I heard. But it’s fine. You know, it’s just stuff. My clarinet, I suppose, I’ve had it for years, but in the end it’s a thing. It’s not like a violin, like a Stradivarius. Just a decent Yamaha, I can get one on eBay and it’ll be exactly the same. It’s just stuff,’ she said again, and with the repetition it seemed to hurt her a little less. People she had known, probably, had come and destroyed all that they could reach of what she owned. That and her garden, he suspected, hurt more than the material things. She wasn’t a soldier, used to showing up and being shot at.

He cast about, wondering how she would regain her sense of the world. Not by hitting someone or shooting at them, obviously. Not by arresting them. She would want to reconnect, to help. He pursed his lips. ‘I can tell Kershaw to sort out a medicine bag for you, if you like.’

She smiled wanly. ‘Thank you.’

He looked at the road, the residue of conflict on it, then back at her. ‘What happened here?’

‘The crowd came, obviously. Beneseffe and the dockmen stood them down. Well, I say that. It was pretty much a medieval battle. They even had drummers, or near enough. It was. . insane.’

‘Raoul?’

‘He wanted to go out and tell them off! I told him no, so he’s angry with me. He’s inside painting a curse, I think, on anyone who burns their own town. On people who smash what’s beautiful. It’s like they can’t bear to see anything good now that they know it’s going to go. Know it properly, I mean. The word’s out on that: that the end is nigh. So now this. If it’s special you smash it before someone else does. I said anyone who does that doesn’t need cursing, and he told me I was a hippy.’ A lovers’ tiff, and a proof of mutual affection. She waved her hand. ‘Do you want to come in?’

But the Sergeant was already running for the Land Rover, because if there was one place in Beauville which was beautiful it was the street of the card-players, with its white steps and trailing flowers.

‘Ferris,’ the Sergeant shouted into his phone, ‘and you know bloody well how to spell it. Now get Jed Kershaw on the phone and tell him it’s the Brevet-Consul of Her Majesty’s United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and I need to know why his lads are sitting in barracks with their thumbs up their arse! I’m not pissing about — this is,’ he groped for the form of words, ‘this is a matter bearing upon the United Kingdom’s willingness to cede sovereign claim to this island to the international protection force.’ The Consul had told him if he ever seriously wanted to get Kershaw’s attention, this was the way to do it. It’ll scare the living shit out of him , the Consul had said, and he’ll be frightfully cross, so don’t do it unless you have to. And for God’s sake, whatever you do don’t imply that you’re actively asserting sovereignty. That could really start some sort of war.

Kershaw came on the line a moment later, and he did indeed sound very pissed off. ‘What the actual fuck, Lester?’

‘Sorry, Jed, I don’t have time to piss about. There’s a bloody riot happening! Get your lads out on the street and do some good!’ He threw the Land Rover around a tight turn and saw the back of the crowd, torches and spars dangling in loose hands. All moving the same way, yes, somehow drawing together again into a mass.

Kershaw snarled at him down the phone. ‘Oh, thank you, Lester! I did notice the fucking riot, but I decided that since NatProMan is specifically charged with exploding the entire island when the time comes, just maybe my guys were not the ideal fucking choice of policing for the streets of Beauville right now, but I’m sorry I didn’t fucking check with you first! And by the way, Sergeant ’ — he spat the rank as if it tasted of rot — ‘don’t you ever fucking bring the diplomatic incident with me! You’re a nice guy, Lester, and I’m sure in a bar in Shropshire you’re tougher than shit, but in this world you are a fucking minnow and I am a shark, do you get me? A fucking shark! And this is where I swim. So unless you have the Queen standing behind you in her armour, ready to fucking joust for this shithole, get off my phone and go back to your castle and stay there until you get orders from your boss!’

The Sergeant stopped the Land Rover and stared into the handset. He left the line open and he could hear Kershaw’s breathing. Over on his right was the mob, about five or six minutes from the street of the card-players. He could hear them, no longer like a mad laugh but a sort of sigh, as if the joy had gone out of their destruction but they had a duty to see it through.

‘Good night, Jed,’ he said gently, and hung up. Shouting worked on enlisted men and sometimes on junior officers, but it was never really an answer, just a way to get the discussion started. You drove them off until you could welcome them back, and that made them grateful. But he couldn’t do that here, with Kershaw. The two of them were in balance, each sovereign and neither truly in control.

He put the phone in his pocket and drove the Land Rover around the back of the old market square, then got out and walked the rest of the way.

The white stone gleamed in the orange light of the sky. The vanguard of the mob was arriving, but the street of the card-players was so neat that there was almost nothing to tear up or burn. The window boxes had been raised to the upper floors, the doors were shut. The flags were sheer and perfect. The Sergeant wondered, briefly, if it was all going to be all right.

And then he saw, under the one soft lantern, the dealer sitting at his table with a deck and a bottle, waiting.

The mob saw him at the same moment and surged forward around him, mocking and plucking. A young boxer took one free chair away and smashed it against the road, then when this met with scattered laughter and encouragement, slouched down into the next seat and poured himself a drink. He knocked it back, then threw the glass away, moved to the last free chair and repeated the gesture, staring at the old man.

A door opened, somewhere, and the sweeper came out with her broom and started to sweep up the broken glass.

The card-player gently retrieved his bottle and took a swig, then handed it back before the boxer could object.

For a moment, it seemed to be working. The sheer, brazen normality of it was waking them, bringing them to themselves. A moment more, and they would have names again, and a sense of self. They were tired. The bacchanal was run out, and the dawn was coming. It was cold and the air was blowing dust. It was working.